Foreword:
Throughout the last term I found immense difficulty in attending the extended improvisation classes due to long-term ongoing issues with my sleep, despite my best efforts. Of the times that I managed to wake up on time, I found the class was cancelled that day on a number of occasions. Because of this, as you will see, I have used backing tracks to try honour the assignment as much as I can. My apologies. I have omitted this statement from the final word count of 1,843. With it, the word count is 1,937.

Week 1:
This week I decided to focus on rhythm. I have a strong melodic and harmonic basis to build upon, but I struggle with rhythm. I started by improvising a melody using diatonic tones to keep it simple, moving through the basic sub-divisions at any pace I could at 100bpm, from crotchet to crotchet triplet to quaver to triplet to semiquaver and back down again. This is a drill that my Specialist Study tutor taught me. Of these, crotchet triplets were definitely the hardest. They felt more akin to a polyrhythm than any of the other subdivisions, likely because they’re played as a derivation of triplets so I find myself counting triplets and trying to play every other one as opposed to knowing the exact rhythmic spacing for the subdivision. I also find semiquavers challenging, since I’ve never been the most technical and precise guitarist, they’ve proved difficult to maintain a pace with when doing other technical techniques. My overall aim is to add variety to my vocabulary through experimenting with an array of musical features other than melody which is my most practiced element. My method for the actual improvisation was to play along to a backing track by Elevated Jam Tracks on YouTube. In retrospect, I found it difficult to apply the rhythms I’m not used to effectively although there were glimpses of uniqueness that stood out throughout the session. As I mentioned before, crotchet triplets are particularly hard for me as they don’t feel as natural as the other rhythms. Starting on different beats and off beats was a fun exercise that made the same phrases sound compelling and characterful. In future, I will aim to combine and synthesise these different techniques to create a robust and genuinely individual sound. For example, I could start playing a single phrase, skipping an 8th and then going back an 8th on every beat, so starting on the first, and then the second, and the and of 1, and then then and of 2, and then the 2 again, the 3 and so on. Another challenge I could attempt could be playing the same phrase but alternating the rhythm, going from 16ths to triplets or something similar. However, I think my overall basis of rhythmic ability is weak and requires more structured practice of the fundamentals before I am fluent enough to both consciously understand what I’m performing in the moment and be able to then improvise with those skills. I will continue to work on the aforementioned drill given to me by my guitar tutor.

Week 2:
This week I decided to focus on using chord tones primarily throughout my session to explore diatonic playing further, chord tones meaning the notes of the triad/chord that the rhythm section may be playing in any given track . My method was to use a backing track (by Elevated Jam Tracks on YouTube) that details the chords used. In this case the chords were F# minor, D, E and B. This was simple enough to experiment with without getting lost in the changes. Since the track vamps on the F# minor for a while, I had a lot of time to explore and think about potential lines and phrases across the fretboard which produced an elegant and varied sound that was attractive to my ear. I made sure to allow myself to use whatever notes I wanted, but focus primarily on chord tones. This allowed to play around with chord extensions which can change the way a song feels drastically. For example, I played this line the included the second and seventh of the F#m which evokes the sound of either a F#m9 or Dmaj9, painting the chord with a mellow and rich quality as opposed to the strong but basic sound of just an F# minor triad. I found that playing with chord tones gave my melodies a natural and predictable but strong direction, feeling triumphant in a sense. This may be because your ear expects to hear these tones when you hear the bass note of a chord that uses traditional diatonic harmony, even if you’re not a musician or knowledgeable about music theory, as long as you’ve been exposed and familiarised with a lot of Western pop. The phrases I played felt naturally melodic, including non-step-wise melodies as an obvious effect of playing chords that are built in thirds. This also allowed me to toy around with unique ways of traversing triads, for example by inverting a third to get a sixth, pushing a note up an octave or playing in diads as opposed to triads or single notes. This, however, exposes a difficulty with chord tones, being playing something unique, as the technique is tried and true; although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I tend to enjoy experimenting until I find something at least novel to myself. This was hard, but a fun mental exercise. Another difficulty was the reasonably basic, although significant, volume of knowledge that was required for me to be able to recall in order to fluently move between triads all over the neck in an improvisatory way. In future, I may try to limit myself further with chord tones to ascertain what can be done with as few or many available notes as possible. For example, I may force myself to incorporate the chord’s sixth interval into each phrase, or disallow root notes. I expect this to reveal some creative and novel paths to explore further.

Week 3:
This week I had the idea to improvise lead lines using full, unbroken triads and chords instead of using single notes or diads or anything similar. I was inspired by a song by Josh Rouse called James which, in the solo, includes this line of minor triads that are slid down the neck of the guitar. My method was to, once again, use a backing track by Elevated Jam Tracks and experiment. My aim was to elaborate on my existing vocabulary with a new technique to add variety to my improvisation. I found this technique’s use case to be limited and difficult to implement in a meaningful and pleasing way. Most of the time, the chords busied and muddied the song if the chord wasn’t a third above or below the chord being played by the rhythm section underneath. This is because there are a lot of clashing notes otherwise that create an uncomfortable amount of dissonance. Whist this isn’t inherently a bad thing, generally dissonance is a tool that needs to be used sparingly, at least in the genres and sounds that I aim for (like that of Dinosaur Jr, Pavement and Pinegrove). If the chords were a third above or below, or the chord that was played by the rhythm section underneath, the technique shone in a unique way reminiscent of James by josh Rouse. This is because the notes harmonise instead of clash, acting more as a chord extension than a lead line. For example, if you have a Cmaj being played by the rhythm section, playing an Amin, which shares most of the same notes barre the sixth, creates a Cmaj6 chord which has a soft and cosy quality. Playing the chord that is a fourth above the rhythm’s chord can sound distinctly Steely Dan-esque, as Larry Carlton, a session member for some of their most prestigious tracks, has admitted in an interview that playing the chord tones of a chord diatonically a fourth above (or a fifth below) the chord being played by the rhythm section was his trick for sounding jazzy since a lot of jazz relies on stacked 4ths and voicings of chords in 4ths. I cannot find this interview unfortunately. Sliding between different triads felt and sounded good in a way few other techniques do and created an elegant sound that I enjoyed. In future I may try to expand on this technique through limitations. For example, a regret I have is failing to recognise that a lot of the muddy quality could have been avoided by playing an octave higher, since I was operating in the same/similar register of the rhythm section. Another thing I could have improved upon was the voicings, as I mostly used closed-voicings and triads, as opposed to “open” voicings, which have some notes in separate octaves. This could’ve provided the phrases with a lot more space and potentially would have sold the idea of the technique further.

Week 4:
This week I decided to give myself the mother of all limitations to experiment with, a single note. My method was to use a backing track by Elevated Jam Tracks on YouTube, and play just one note is as many variations as I could. This provides me the opportunity to experiment with and focus on a variety of other musical elements other than melody in an improvisatory setting. I chose to play the root note, B in this case, to keep things simple. This choice also allowed me to play the open string on the guitar, giving me more options to play with like the 5th, 12th and 17th fret harmonics on that string. I found this exercise more difficult than I anticipated it being, since my ear and fingers were desperate to play different notes, form a melody and resolve the rhythmic tension that was building with each repetition of the note. My weaknesses were also exposed, namely rhythm as most of my rhythmic ability is a lot less technically informed and developed than that of my melodic ability. That being said, experimenting with tremolo picking, pairing the open string with other strings and hopping between as many different instances of B that I could find as quickly as I could was fun and revealed more depth to the technique than I expected. I toyed around with raking into the note, playing octaves, large slides and legato versus staccato playing and I’m sure there are a lot of other ways I could’ve approached the challenge as well. The result was distinctly funky as there tends to be a lot of single-note usage in the genre since a large part of it’s identity is vamping and improvisation. In future, I could definitely find many other ways to play a single note. I could’ve, for example, played with dynamics a lot more since I mostly played at a pretty standard volume. I could’ve also used space a lot more effectively and to my advantage, since a single note becomes incredibly predictable quickly. If I were to use more space between phrases I could offset this and potentially have it feel like a surprise. I could’ve played it like a drone, almost reminiscent of a Shruti box or Sitar. This could blend the lead into the rhythm section, acting as a stable basis for the rest of the rhythm section to sit on. A drone would also distinctly change the quality of the song into something more mellow or make it sound akin to some kind of world or folk music.